The Jodcast is a volunteer podcast about astronomy, supported by the STFC. It was set up by astronomers based at the University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory, but aims to cover astronomy carried out all over the world.
The Jodcast is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 2.0 England & Wales License so you can take it away and create stuff with it. If you do amazing (or even slightly interesting) things with our podcast we would love to hear about it.
When?
A new programme is released near the start and middle of each month. Exactly when the show is released is a mystery even to us but - in true astronomer fashion - that is only accurate to about 10%.
Where?
We are mostly based at Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics in Manchester in the north-west of England. However, we will talk to astronomers based anywhere. If you happen to be an astronomer, why not drop us an email and we might interview you - however, we have a limited budget so if you live far away it will have to be via telephone or Skype.
Why?
As astronomers we love astronomy. We also love to tell other people about the things that interest us. Rather than talk to strangers on trains, we decided to make our own 'radio' show where we could ramble on. There were already a handful of astronomy podcasts in existence (see the links page) when we started but we thought we would add our own peculiarly British voices to the mix. We will also cover some aspects of astronomy that the others don't. Anyway, the more the merrier!
Why did we choose the name 'The Jodcast'? The name arose because Tim wasn't listening properly when Stuart was explaining what a podcast was. We know it is cheesy but we like it.
Who?
The Jodcast is made by several people, but there were three ring leaders; Nick Rattenbury (Dr Nick), Stuart Lowe (Dr Stuart) and Dave Ault (Doctor Who wannabe). Sadly Dr Nick had to retire in 2009 and exited stage right, pursued by a microlensing funding crisis. In came Roy Smits for a time, but his talent was quickly poached to the Netherlands. Now Jen Gupta and a new breed of Jodcast Juniors are filling the ranks...
There are many parts to the Jodcast so here is a breakdown of who to blame credit. Dave writes most of the sci-fi rip-off mini-dramas that feature at the start and end of each episode - they can be cheesy but it keeps him out of trouble. Stuart attempts to keep the website and RSS feeds updated and sometimes pretends to be able to edit audio along with Sarah and Adam. Stuart insists that he doesn't sound "like a farmer".
Each month Ian Morison gives us a round up of what we can see in the night sky, Tim O'Brien answers listener questions and Megan Argo tells us what's in the news.
Many thanks also go to the unfortunate friends of Dave who are roped into being characters in our intros and outros. Check out Darker Projects (www.darkerprojects.com), Pendant Audio (www.pendantaudio.com) and Dream Realm (www.dregold.net) for more audio dramas done by Dave and friends!
(read less)The Jodcast is a volunteer podcast about astronomy, supported by the STFC. It was set up by astronomers based at the University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory, but aims to cover astronomy carried out all over the world.
The Jodcast is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 2.0 England & Wales License so you can take it away and create stuff with it. If you do amazing (or even slightly interesting) things with our podcast we would love to hear about...
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